Easter eggs
An Easter egg is hidden content intentionally inserted by the creators. General At the beginning of each episode, there is a title image hidden in the title sequence, interspersed with the word "FLASHFORWARD". References to Lost *On the episode No More Good Days, an Oceanic Airlines billboard is visible when Mark Benford and Demetri Noh are pursuing the terrorists. *Also on the episode No More Good Days when the criminal's have stopped the building they enter is called Oceanic. Season 1 *'Newspaper Article' - During the stake-out, before the GBO, Mark Benford is in the car with Demetri Noh, reading a newspaper. The one visible headline in the paper is an article about Alzheimer's disease research. Alzheimer's is a disease that affects memory and during its onset the area of the brain most affected is the hippocampus. We are told after the GBO that CAT scans running during the GBO showed an unusually high level of activity in the hippocampus lobes of the patients. This article and several other references to the hippocampus that appear in later scenes suggest that the role of the hippocampus in brain functioning may be an important element of the story as it unfolds. *'Balloons' - When Bryce Varley recovers from the GBO and is lying on the pier, a bunch of balloons float by overhead. Several are in the shape of seahorses. The word "hippocampus" is the Greek word for seahorse. This is another sign that the role of the hippocampus may be significant to the overall story *'Tale of Attaf '- A few minutes after the GBO, Mark Benford walks by a movie theater on his way to find Olivia. The marquee of the theater says the movie showing is "The Tale of Attaf." There doesn't appear to actually be any such movie. But the "Tale of Attaf" is one of the stories in the "Thousand and One Arabian Nights." Notably, its about a "self-fulfilling prophecy." So, it seems to relate to the series' main theme of retrocausality. Also, Attaf is the name of the boy Felicia Wedeck sees living in her house in her flashforward. * Cartoon Characters - After the schoolyard "Blackout" game at the beginning of the episode, the boy who first talks to Charlie Benford is wearing a red t-shirt with a cartoon sea beast on it. That same beast appeared in the cartoon show Charlie was watching on television on the morning of the GBO at the start of the first episode. The stuffed animal Charlie is holding, and that gets torn in her tussle with the boy, was also in that show. We learn later, when Olivia is sewing him up, that his name is "Squirrelio." *'Phytoplankton' - Early in Episode 3, Mark Benford, Janis Hawk, and Agent Vreede are in the FBI office reviewing information received from other intelligence services regarding the GBO. Agent Vreede refers to a report from Tonga, saying they believe that the GBO was caused by a "phytoplankton bloom." The agents laughingly dismiss the report. But the FlashForward writers may have put the phytoplankton report in the story for a reason. Had the agents taken the report seriously and done a little research they might have learned some useful things. Phytoplankton are organisms that live in both fresh and seawater around the world. They are the type of plankton that grow by using photosynthesis to convert inorganic material, such as carbon, into food. Since they rely upon sunlight, they live in the upper layers of water. A variety of outside stimuli can trigger rapid growth of phytoplankton in an area, producing a "bloom" - a layer of often colorful vegetation on the surface of the water. Some of those stimuli can arise from the ionizing effects of electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere. With that information, the agents might have been prompted to look further into whether the phytoplankton bloom showed some possible connections between the GBO and changes in the levels of electromagnetic radiation. *'Crustal Rifting' - Early in Episode 3, Mark Benford, Janis Hawk, and Agent Vreede are in the FBI office reviewing information received from other intelligence services regarding the GBO. Janis refers to what she describes as an "insane" report claiming that the GBO was caused by toxic gasses released from deep within the earth as a result of "crustal rifting." In geologic terms, crustal rifting is the stretching and eventual pulling apart of the earth's crust in areas (called rift zones) where tectonic plates are moving apart. It takes place fairly gradually and from time to time results in the opening of cracks in the crust allowing the upwelling of magma and gasses from deeper within the earth's mantle. In instances when this magma plume stops before it reaches the surface, hotspots - bubbles of magma and gasses - can form just below the surface. When the plume reaches the surface, volcanic activity may take place. One of the gases that is found in hotspots and sometimes vents from them, is helium, including the rare helium isotope Helium 3, or 3He. 3He is one of the optimum components for the fusion of plasma that can emit high intensity electromagnetic radiation. The largest active rift zone in the world is the East Africa Rift Zone, which extends along almost the entire eastern coast of Africa. Its most dramatic rifting activity takes place in an area where three plates are pulling apart, called the Afar junction. The Afar junction is located below northeastern Ethiopia and northern Somalia, and the active rift that runs south from it, generally along the border between Ethiopia and Somalia, results from the African Plate splitting apart into two plates - the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate. Janis probably didn't know this. *'Addison's Disease'- A patient treated by Olivia and Bryce in this episode, Ned Ned, almost died during surgery. Before the surgery, Bryce determined, on the basis of Ned's flashforward, that Ned might have Addison's disease, although Ned had never been diagnosed with the disorder. Bryce may have been wrong in connecting Ned's presumed low level of adrenaline to Addison's disease, however. Adrenaline is produced by the medula of the adrenal gland. Addison's disease results from malfunctioning of a different part of the Adrenal, the cortex, which produces cortisol. It often is hereditary, and usually develops slowly over time. A related disorder, an Addisonian crisis, which can develop quickly, can have a number of causes, including over-stress, damage to the adrenal or pituitary gland, or some acute hormonal imbalance. Studies have shown that damage to these glands and imbalances in the relevant hormones can be caused by exposure to certain types of electromagnetic energy. Could the use of Ned's adrenal problem in this episode be an indicator that the GBO involved exposure to some irregular electromagnetic energy? *'Calcineurin' - During Ned's surgery, one of the doctors makes a gratuitous comment about a visitor at the hospital's Grand Rounds who had opined that treatment with a "calcineurin antagonist" could enhance a person's memory of a flashforward. Calcineurin is a protein that, among many other things, plays a role in chemical interactions in the brain, including interactions associated with memory formation and retention. One identified effect of calcineurin is the suppression, and sometimes erasure, of the "fear memories" retained in the brain. Such memories play a major role in generating anxiety and lack of self-confidence. The doctor's comment suggests that some aspect of the GBO may increase calcineurin levels, therefore increasing its impact on the brain's memory functions and interfere with a person's memory of their flashforwards. A "calcineurin antagonist" is something that inhibits the activity and effects of calcineurin, and would therefore reduce its ability to interfere with memories of a flashback or suppress fear memory. One element involved in brain chemistry that can act as a calcineurin antagonist is cortisol. Therefore, if, as the doctor's comments suggest, something about the GBO increases the level of calcineurins in the brain, a person with low levels of cortisol could be more affected by that increase and would be more susceptible to having their memories of the flash back interfered with and fear memories suppressed or erased. *'Another Kangaroo' - Olivia advises Llyod Simcoe that he might find some ways to connect with his son Dylan by going to the home of his now dead ex-wife and taking a look at some of the toys and other things in Dylan's room. Lloyd does so and as he enters Dylan's room we get to see our second kangaroo in the series. This one is a stuffed toy sitting on a cabinet. She's carrying a joey in her pouch and wearing boxing gloves. A nice symbol of the maternal instinct for Lloyd to reflect on. *'Cricket Suicide' - Nicole Kirby's priest, Father Seabury, tells her he keeps crickets as a hobby. In nature, crickets have an interesting parasitic relationship that could be metaphoric for Nicole. The hairworm is a parasite that attaches itself to a cricket as a juvenile, but when it reaches adulthood must live in water to survive. By the time the hairworm reaches this stage it has grown large enough to be able to manipulate the cricket to find and enter a body of water. The cricket drowns and the hairworm detaches itself to get on with its life. *'Cricket Box' - The box containing crickets on Father Seabury's desk has writing on the end. The first line is "Black Swan". The second line is "Short Boots." A Black Swan ankle boot is a style of women's shoe. The name comes from its graceful shape, which resembles a swan, and its color. *'Zurika' Coffee - The coffee shop where Demetri and Zoey are having coffee and discussing their wedding date and the FBI's detention of Alda Hertzog is named Zurika Coffee. An anagram of Zurika is Kuzari, which is a philosophy that originated in Judaism and was a major influence on the development of the Kaballah. One of its major tenets, known as the "Kuzari Principle" is that if people believe an event occurred, it proves that it actually did happen. The Kabbalah was injected into the FlashForward story when Rudolf Geyer referred to it in giving Mark and Janis his explanation of the significance of the GBO having lasted for 137 sekunden. Category:Production Category:References